The Concept of Living Well in the 21st Century: Culturally Constructed Health Imperative or Biomedicalised Lifeway?
Robyn Mobbs, Living Well Centre for Military and Veterans Health, University of Queensland-Herston
There is growing recognition within the health care sector that the Australian health system needs to change its focus from illness to wellness. In this presentation I will provide a reflexive anthropological account of the Living Well Program we have designed at the Centre for Military and Veterans Health. The proposed goal of the program is to share and develop knowledge about effective ways to enhance wellness among at-risk population groups including veterans and their families, community organisations, primary care providers, policy-makers, and other researchers. The key planks to the program are disability management (rehabilitation and compensation/ chronic conditions), health protection (health promotion/ prevention) and patient-centred health management (illness risk management/early intervention/self-management). These are underpinned by a holistic conceptual framework that incorporates social and cultural well-being, medical evidence for healthy outcomes and a health-supporting environment. I will address the question, Is this a sophisticated wellness program that in a complicated way will achieve a more holistic approach to the complicated cultural construction of living well, or a further biomedicalisation of our 21st century Australian lifeways?
